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Live: Godsmack and Shinedown in Noblesville

When two mega-level bands come together for a co-headline tour, it can go very well or just plain horribly. But when two bands who have respect for each other do it, it’s pure magic and that’s what Shinedown and Godsmack’s summer co-headline tour has been so far and it was the case when the tour hit Noblesville, Ind.’s Ruoff Home Mortgage Music Center with support from Like A Storm.

Indianapolis rock fans can be a tough crowd for new bands sometimes, especially now that there’s no active rock station to familiarize them with the future of rock music but when a band makes an impact, it doesn’t take long for word to spread.

Needless to say, when Like A Storm hit the stage, the crowd was ready to go and the venue was almost completely full already. They knocked it out of the park with ease, opening with “Pure Evil from their latest record- Catacombs before hitting the crowd with “Become the Enemy” and “Wish You Hell,” which everyone knew to perfection from the bands previous record, which spawned numerous hits and fan favorites.

With each song, the crowd sang along and got involved, proving the band should be headline level soon.

It wasn’t long before a white curtain adorned the stage. After two intro tracks, the lights went down and Shinedown took over, elevating things to another level. From the start of Sound of Madness, Shinedown brought the heat- literally- there was massive amounts of pyro and explosions all the way through.

They balanced the setlist beautifully, throwing in three songs from their new record- Attention Attention on top of the intro track, mixed in with songs from almost every record except Us and Them.

Crowd involvement was big during their set, with frontman Brent Smith shaking the hands of every photographer in the photo pit and many front row fans as well as bringing guitarist Zach Myers heading into the crowd twice- before “Enemies” and during “45” and “Simple Man,” before returning the stage to end things with “Devil.”

The capacity crowd was deafening and made you wonder- even if you’d seen them before- how Godsmack could follow them- until they took the stage.

They kicked it off with the title track from their latest record- When Legends Rise and obliterated the crowd, following that with “1000hp” and “Keep Away,” the second of which saw the back of the stage drenched in flames.

Frontman Sully Erna made sure the crowd knew they were there to destroy everything and everyone, demanding nothing but the crowd’s absolute best and that’s exactly what went down. From start to finish, the crowd was in a complete frenzy and dealt back to the band everything fed to them.

Then things really picked up when the opening lines of “Voodoo” were met with a full moon, which rose the second the song started, much to the excitement of Erna and the rest of the band.

This led to the legendary “Batalla de los Tambores” double drum solo between Erna and drummer Shannon Larkin, which was met- as always- with roars of excitement and approval from the fans before “Bulletproof” and “I Stand Alone ended the night with a surprise “Highway to Hell cover sprinkled in.

In the end, this has been one of the top tours of the summer. All three bands brought their A Game and either raised the bar for the next band or blew the previous out of the water.

There’s something special when every band on a bill is operating at their best and when the crowd is just as electric and that’s exactly what this show was.